


in rainbows (in shadows)

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 15:24:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: Nineteen Doctor Who s1-s5 — with dashes of Classic!Who thrown in — ficlets built around an LJ fanmix made many moons ago.





	in rainbows (in shadows)

01\. Coldplay – “Square One”  
 **(for the eleventh doctor and amy pond)**

“I’ve started to talk to myself, all the time. It’s givin’ me an earache.”  
“You’re lonely.”

He was; of course he was. When wasn’t he? Could any of them really understand what it was like? To be _the last of your kind_ — the absolute last? No chance of carrying on the species, no one to teach the old customs and traditions to, just a big hole inside your head full of emptiness where there used to be _an entire planet_. 

Where there was now only an aching silence?

He glanced up over the new, untested, shiny console and caught her hazel eyes with his. He had the urge to smile, so he did, testing out the feel of his new lips at the same time. She smiled back, a glimmer of something volatile and unpredictable in that ginger-framed face.

Still. It wasn’t so bad, so lonely, when there was another planet, another decade over the horizon, and there was such an interesting, untested, spunky (was that a good word for her? Yes, that was a _great_ word for her) companion traveling at your side.

“Goodbye, Leadworth. Hello, everything!”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

02\. Marina & the Diamonds – “I Am Not a Robot (Clock Opera Remix)”  
 **(for rose tyler, from mickey smith)**

He knew what it looked like. He knew what people would say, if he ever told anyone and they didn’t chuck him in the loony bin straight-aways. 

They’d say he was desperate, that he was pathetic, that he was wasting his life sitting around waiting for her.

But it had sort of become who he _was_ , really. Loyal, reliable, dependable Mickey Smith. Always a phone call away with some pocket money or a yellow truck or a handy computer. Mickey Smith: the tin dog. 

And it was hard, letting her go. Getting over her. Because it was Rose Tyler, the girl from around the corner who’d gone to the edges of the universe and come back with starlight in her hair and a sharper air of confidence. He’d always been crazy for her. Completely gaga, ever since they were kids. And now she’d seen such great things, _done_ such great things, and the stories she had to tell… She’d saved the universe, and when she smiled at him it was like being noticed by a goddess made flesh and blood. 

It would have been so much easier if it had been Tom from the next block, or that flash bloke from the electronics shop. He could have resigned himself to that—being chucked over for someone who had better opportunities or a nicer job or great arms. But it was the Doctor; it was a man who wasn’t even an actual man, who could literally give her anything in the universe. He couldn’t very well rough up the Doctor, and he could never hope to compete with him. 

Somehow, knowing that the bloke she’d chosen was truly the most important, powerful, and wonderful man in the universe wasn’t much consolation.

He’d get over her, eventually; he knew this deep down. He’d find someone else, someone who could understand everything he’d been through, someone who’d appreciate the fact that he was earthbound and didn’t go around changing his face and was pretty good with computers and engines. 

Someday he wouldn’t be the tin dog—he’d be Mickey Smith: Defender of the Universe.

But he’d never be able to delete her number from his mobile.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

03\. Florence + the Machine – “Howl”  
 **(for the bad wolf)**

It was like having liquid gold in your veins, white hot and blazing. Her eyes burned with the fullness of the universe, every face and monument and sunrise that ever was or is or ever could be exploding in her mind. As she stretched out her hand, she could feel the fabric of time and space bending, resisting, breaking before her like invisible cobwebs.

“I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words—I scatter them, in time and space. A message to lead myself here.”

She could see it all even as the pain threatened to overwhelm her. The splintering paths into the future, the different worlds pressed together like pages in a vast book, the beach, the cracks, the year that never was, the silence and the darkness. She could choose now, she could shape everything, she could use the power in her head to make the world she’d always wanted, where her father was alive and her Doctor would be with her forever.

“It’s going to kill you, Rose! You’re gonna burn!”  
“I want you safe. My Doctor.”

And looking into his eyes, those pale blue eyes she would recognize on any planet, in any lifetime, she could see _him_. The Doctor from Gallifrey, the last of the Time Lords, who could have been President, who could have been the Valeyard, who could have failed so many times before and carried the universe in his hand. 

His hand. 

Her hand in his. 

As if they were made to correspond. In the end, wasn’t that what she really wanted? To run with him through history and fire, with his hand forever around hers? To hold tight and never let go. 

“It hurts. My head. It’s killin’ me.”  
“C’mere. I think you need a Doctor.”

Of course she did. The fairy tale had gotten it all wrong. It was a Doctor the Bad Wolf had always needed — not a girl in a red hood. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

04\. Rufus Wainwright – “Evil Angel”  
 **(for sally sparrow and the weeping angels)**

After everything she’d seen, everything she’d lost and gained, Sally Sparrow counted herself as lucky. 

She thought of Kathy, and often, and while her heart still ached with missing her—all of the things she’d never said: how much she had appreciated her, how she was the sister she would have chosen in the blink of an eye—she also found solace in the pictures and the letter. In the knowledge that Kathy had loved a good man and been happy and died surrounded by a family that would never have been if she, Sally, hadn’t taken her to Wester Drumlins that fateful day. 

She’d gone to Billy Shipton’s funeral, just a strange girl on the edge of the small group mourners, and knew she would always hold onto his smile and sweet words and that calm resignation he’d had at the end. He was a good man, who had saved her (and Larry, don’t ever forget Larry) with a few DVD Easter eggs. If he hadn’t been touched by the Angel, if he hadn’t died in that empty hospital ward with only Sally Sparrow in attendance, what would he have been to her? Perhaps nothing more than a good friend who liked to flirt. But she somehow knew that he would have been one of the _best_ of friends.

And then there was Larry. Dear, bumbling, conspiracy-theorist Larry. Would she have ever seen past the obsessive fanboy exterior if not for the Doctor and the Angels? She wouldn’t have the shop she loved without him and his business savvy; she wouldn’t have such a sweet, understanding boyfriend if she hadn’t lost Kathy, hadn’t held Billy’s hand as he slipped away, hadn’t had a conversation with a strange Doctor thirty-eight years after he sat down in front of a video camera—if she hadn’t kept her eyes open when her body was screaming with the need to blink. 

Sally Sparrow had learned the value of keeping her eyes open. It had only taken a good Doctor and some angelic intervention.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

05\. Jónsi – “Sticks & Stones”  
 **(for the companions)**

 

_“The first nineteen years of my life nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever. And then I met a man called The Doctor. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end.”_

Her life had been empty before he’d taken her hand. There had been nothing but work and food and sleep. She folded clothes, gave people their change, went to the pub with Mickey to watch the matches, had a cuppa with Jackie before bed—and then she got up and did it all over again.

It wasn’t until that brilliant, impossible man with daft ears had run into her life that she’d realized just how useless it had all been. The monotony, the boredom, the repetition of it all. But he showed her a new way to live. A way that was full of adrenaline and tears and changing things for the better. 

She never regretted her choices. And while she never _quite_ got over him—not even with the man who looked and acted and sounded just like him lying on the other side of the bed—she was always grateful. 

She made him better, and he’d returned the favor.

\---

_“…So this is me. Getting out.”_

She’d always been the responsible one, the mediator, the peace-keeper. When her parents were bickering and her brother was making bad decisions and her sister was constantly calling her for advice, she was always there and ready to help. She’d paid her bills on time, never skipped a class—never done a remotely irresponsible and spontaneous thing in her life.

And then that mad man with two hearts and no shoes saved her life, saved the lives of hundreds of patients and doctors while the Earth glowed green and blue above them. And when he offered her a trip — just one, mind you — she didn’t _really_ think twice about it. 

Maybe it was because he was clever and dashing and had given her one of the best kisses she’d ever had; maybe it was because her entire day had been so mad and terrifying and wonderful; maybe it was because for the first time in her life Martha Jones had gotten a taste of something wild and unpredictable and just wanted to have a bit more of that flavor in her mouth.

Was it all worth it, in the end? Her first and last fling with spontaneous irresponsibility? She’d left all of her obligations behind her—her family, her studies—and when she returned she had to pick up the slightly-broken pieces. She had people to comfort, and a heart to heal. Sometimes she wondered if it _had_ all been worth it.

But then she’d look up at the stars at night and she’d remember the moments when her blood had been singing in her veins as she ran; she’d remember the beauty and the glory and the moments that no one else on Earth could have experienced.

And despite all of the heartache, she was glad she’d met the Doctor.

\---

_“I was gonna travel with you forever. The Doctor Donna in the TARDIS.”_

She had always felt like she was less than. Oh, she had covered it up with brash words and careless postures. She was good at that; at being loud and _there_ and hard to ignore. Better to let them think her annoying or rude than for them to see just how stupid and useless she really was.

At least, that was how she felt before she found the Doctor. Before she impressed him with her Super Temp skills and he said, “Oh, Donna, you are _brilliant_!” for the first time. Before she faced down aliens and cruelty and madness and discovered that she _could_ make a difference—that she could save people from ash and fire, and help Agatha Christie solve her greatest mystery, and stop the destruction of the universe.

And she’d done it all by being Donna, by being human, by becoming just a little bit better than she had been. Everyone had always looked down on her—because she was a temp, because she was needy, because she was too loud—but the Doctor hadn’t. The Doctor had taken her hand and shown her her potential and she had changed. She’d become wonderful. The most important woman in the universe.

Until—

Sometimes at night, when she lay in bed just on the edge between sleeping and waking, with Shaun’s steady breathing beside her, she would see things flash across her eyes. Stars and Converse shoes and snowy mountains and giant wasps and silly pepper pot robots—but when she tried to hold onto them they faded into a gray mist.

As if they had never been there at all.

She wrote them off as silly dreams brought on by late night ice cream and too much telly.

\---

_“It’s okay. I understand. You’ve got to leave me.”_

Everyone did, in the end. And she should be used to him leaving her—he’d done it twice before. 

But then again, _he_ had come back. He might not have come back exactly when he said he would. But he’d come back. 

And maybe that was why she always waited for him. A part of her had never grown out of hoping for him; four psychiatrists had had no luck convincing her he was imaginary. She’d kept the drawings and the dolls. She’d kept dreaming of his return. 

Because she had to believe that _someone_ would come back for her. That she wasn’t meant to be left behind by everyone she met. The loneliness would be too much to bear if she forgot him, what he meant. 

It was funny how her aunt had kept sending her to psychiatrists. She’d just sent her to the wrong kind of Doctor, that's all. She just had to wait for the perfect one to come back and show her how wrong she was about people—she had to learn that not _everyone_ would abandon her or forget her.

Sometimes, when the Doctor looked at her sideways, she had the funny feeling that _she_ was forgetting something important herself. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

06\. Athlete – “Superhuman Touch”  
 **(for the tenth doctor, from rose)**

Mad. Impossible. Fantastic. There was never a dull moment; how could there be, when you lived in the TARDIS with such a man? Rose never stopped marveling over him, not even when she tripped over his trainers or picked up his dirty teacups. 

It was the way he grinned when he took her hand, the way his coat billowed behind him as they ran, the way he’d tug his ear when nervous or embarrassed—all perfectly normal, bloke-ish things you’d expect from anyone.

But in him, in the Doctor, they were the most incredible details. Because then he’d spin on his heel and flourish his sonic screwdriver and the door would blow open with a bang. He’d rattle off something brilliant and bonkers and the approaching foe would be thrown off balance just long enough for him to pull off some jiggery-pokery that would disarm the weapon, defuse the bomb, halt the self-destruct countdown. 

There was always a light around him. A golden glow of magic and stardust. He’d pull on one of his lopsided smiles, throw out his hand, and off they’d run through history and nebulas. 

The touch of his hand electrified her in a way no one else's ever could. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

07\. Imogen Heap—“Clear the Area”  
 **(for river song)**

The first time he met her was on the day she died. 

The first time she met him was on the day she started to live. 

It was far from an easy relationship; but then all couples have issues. Some people worry about politics or religion or exes—she had to worry about time streams and spoilers and cracks in the universe.

It was hard, training herself to be satisfied with the small moments she could snatch in the midst of all of the terror and death and running. Most women would see it as a destructive relationship: sticking with a man who always threw you into danger and heartache. 

But this was the Doctor, the most brilliant, wonderful man in the universe. And sometimes you couldn’t convince yourself to stay away from something wonderful just because it might ultimately be the end of you. Better to die while living than to never feel alive at all.

She spent most of her life waiting for him, or throwing herself headlong into the strange and perilous, knowing in her heart that he’d be there to catch her when she fell. 

Well, usually.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

08\. Muse – “Resistance”  
 **(for rose and her doctor)**

“How long are you gonna stay with me?”  
“Forever.”

And he’d half-convinced himself that it was possible. That they could find a way to cheat time and hide away in the TARDIS. The Doctor and his Rose. 

He often made mistakes and acted the fool, but this was the first time he’d willfully ignored the truth. For her. Because he couldn’t bear to hurt her, and because the thought of losing her cut across his mind like a cold blade. She’d become his home, his North Star, and he knew that without her he’d drift like a rudderless ship. He had lost so much already—the universe _couldn’t_ take her from him.

“I made my choice a long time ago and I’m not gonna leave you.”

There was such sincerity in her words, and her eyes weren’t just bright with tears—there was devotion there, and love. He looked down and away, staggered by the rawness of the emotions. Humans lived such fleeting lives—perhaps that was why Rose Tyler’s heart burned so brightly. Everything was so vivid and present for her; she felt things in a way he couldn’t comprehend anymore, not with all of the calluses and old scars the centuries had built around him. 

He wanted to open his mouth and say the words that had been on his tongue for months—the words that had been there long before, on another tongue. But he stopped, as he always had, afraid that giving them voice would only make the inevitable more painful.

And then it was too late. She was standing on a beach beyond his reach, the wind catching her hair and teardrops.

“I love you!” she cried, half-sobbing, and did she know that his hearts were breaking in his chest?

“If it’s my last chance, Rose Tyler—”

It was something he would always regret, though a part of him knew he never would have been able to say the words she longed to hear so badly. Naming something gave it power, and the sheer force of that realized power would have crushed him entirely.

But he would always carry it with him. That unspoken love. It was a light in dark places. A warming fire in the cold depths of space. He took a part of the blonde girl from London with him; and in a way, they had only spoken the truth.

Rose Tyler _would_ stay with him forever.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

09\. The National – “Runaway”  
 **(for when you have to stand and make a difficult choice)**

“Some would be inspired. Some would run away. And some would go mad.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, the ones that ran away! I never stopped.”

But then that wasn’t _exactly_ true. There had been days—so many days—when someone had to take a stand. Someone had to say something when everyone else looked away, someone had to press the button or flip the switch, someone had to make the decision no one else could take responsibility for. 

Cannon said there were only two responses to danger: fight or flight. Some would say the Doctor leaned heavily towards flight, which was true to an extent. He knew how to run, in a way few could. But when things were at their direst, and hope seemed only a pale, fading ghost, when the danger had reached critical levels—

Then the Doctor would stop, and turn, and the weight of responsibility would settle over his shoulders in a way that told the observant that it was a familiar burden. 

The Doctor could outrun the Hounds of Hell. But he knew how to stare them down, too.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

10\. the xx – “Shelter”  
 **(for martha jones and the year that never was)**

It was the hardest thing she would ever do. 

Every day was more painful than the last—she saw only horror, death, and desperation, and she wanted so badly to hide from it all. _Just stop_ , a part of her would whisper. _It’s pointless. Hopeless. An effort in futility. There’s no way any of this could ever be fixed—the damage is too terrible._

The hours between midnight and dawn were always the hardest. The fear and the anger and the sorrow would threaten to overwhelm her, and there were nights when she half-hoped she would never see the next sunrise. That the Master and his Toclafane would discover her and end her misery. 

But she pushed on. She kept walking. She told the story to every man, woman, and child she could find. She used the words the Doctor had given her, and she tried to hold onto the memory of his smile and his strength and the touch of his hand. 

Martha Jones was stronger than anything the Master could do. She held onto this knowledge and she kept walking. She had a world to save; the Doctor was depending on her.

And she was not about to let them down.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

11\. Jen Titus – “O Death”  
 **(for those foolish enough to cross the oncoming storm)**

“You get one warning. That was it.”

But they never heeded him. They thought themselves more powerful, cleverer, even justified in their actions. They knocked aside the hand he held out, the offers of mercy and another start on another planet, and they persisted in their plans of conquest and subjugation.

He was nothing but a coward, they hissed to one another. A wanderer who would rather run than fight, who traveled unarmed and refused to shoot even when threatened with pain and destruction. 

They thought him silly and bumbling. Mistook his grins and babbled speeches as signs of weakness.

Afterwards, in the moments before the darkness of death washed over them—or when they had nothing but eons to ponder their mistakes, trapped in their inescapable punishments—they would realize he had tried to be kind. 

That he had tried to spare them the terrible sight of his true power. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

12\. Florence + the Machine – “Drumming Song”  
 **(for the master)**

They were always there. 

He tried to ignore them, running himself to exhaustion, focusing on the light hot above him. He tried to suffocate them late at night, burying his face in the pillows until the lack of oxygen made stars burst across his eyes. He tried to replace the steady beat with another, memorizing song after song after song across the galaxy. 

Nothing worked. Each attempt to escape become more desperate. Every day that passed deepened his panic and anger. He lashed out, he screamed, he broke whatever he could lay hands to. He was shunned and feared for it.

If only he had known _why_. Would he have accepted the proffered hand? Sought help from the one who had been a friend and had since become the focus of his resentment? Could the knowledge have redirected that consuming fire of rage onto the true source of his madness?

Or would he have smashed everything, set the entire universe to burning, and laughed as everything dissolved into a blackness so thick not even sound could penetrate it?

To stop the incessant drums, he would have beaten down the very walls of reality. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

13\. Coldplay – “Trouble”  
 **(for donna noble)**

He’d seen past the bluster and bravado on that first adventure, when she’d complained about pockets and told everyone he was a Martian and there had been the screaming of children in the flood. Everyone underestimated Donna Noble — but not the Doctor. He knew she could do so much more. Be someone greater. 

So when she found him again, loading his arms with hatboxes and bags, all eagerness and excitement, he had hesitated. After the year that never was and all that he had put Martha and her family through, he was afraid of what he might do to this hopeful, wounded woman. She could no longer be satisfied with the life she’d always had, and he was her ticket to a vaster one, one full of true magic. But Donna Noble was a fragile woman beneath the brassy exterior, eager for a purpose and acceptance.

And there was so much danger and darkness out there. He was afraid it would crush that last glimmer of hope in her.

But how could he say no? She wanted _so badly_ to go with him, and she had been right—sometimes he needed someone to stop him. And sometimes he needed someone to make him go on. In the end, he’d taken Donna Noble away in the TARDIS because it was what she needed most; and he'd needed her, too. 

It was brilliant. It was all shiny and glorious again, and when the darkness came—as it always did, he could never truly escape it, no matter how fast they ran—she was there to stand beside him, her hand over his as he pushed the button. Ready with a cup of tea and a bracing hug after he lost Jenny, after that terrible day on Midnight. Donna Noble proved her worth, and he didn't regret asking her to come.

But — as all things must — it ended. She became the most important woman in the universe—and he had to take that away from her. He couldn’t stand there and watch her die after saving him, after saving _everyone_ , any more than he could have let Rose die, or Martha. There was a life still out there, back on Earth, for Donna Noble. 

And so the Doctor had killed the Doctor Donna. He’d taken a dazzling, brave, beautiful woman and made her less than what she should have been. He just couldn’t let her die, not like that—that couldn’t be her reward after everything they’d been through.

Yet even knowing she’d found a good man and real happiness on Earth never lessened the pain that he carried beside the knowledge of the terrible thing he had done.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

14\. Uh Huh Her – “Say So”  
 **(for the ninth doctor, from rose)**

“I’m a Time Lord. I’m the last of them. They’re all gone. I’m the only survivor. I’m left traveling on my own because there’s no one else.”

“There’s me.”

She said it shyly, as if afraid he’d reject her. As if that was even possible—after only a few hours, she’d already bewitched him, with her courage and her heart and that sweet light in her eyes when she smiled. When she slid her arm through his and mentioned chips, her tongue peeking out impertinently, he could only laugh and nod.

He’d lost an awful lot. But when Rose Tyler took his hand and smiled, everything seemed easier and brighter. 

A burden shared was a burden halved.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

15\. Sigur Ros – “Staralfur”  
 **(for the ones left behind)**

Everyone has bad nights. When the nightmares are so vivid they wake you with a physical jolt, or when the memories and regrets press close against your skin and threaten to suffocate you with guilt. 

The Doctor has bad nights, too, though most wouldn’t think so with a quick glance. No, the Doctor is silly and careless and quick with a quip. To the casual observer — to the ones he runs past in a blink of an eye — he’s a jester, a perpetual boy. Too quick on his feet to be tied down to anything as heavy as guilt.

But look him full in the eyes, look past the defenses he builds with jokes and pop references, and you’ll see the heavy sorrow beneath. The life he leads is never charmed—so many have died on his watch, so many hands have slipped out of his grasp, so many have thrown themselves into the line of fire to save him from the claws of death. They were brave, and they were selfless, and they did the right thing without hesitation. 

And while the Doctor sometimes wishes he could forget all of the death and the pain he brought into so many lives, unintentionally or with the _best_ of intentions, he never lets himself forget the names and faces. 

No, that is both his penance and his tribute to them. When the years have sped by and everyone else they ever knew has died, when all other memory of their names and actions have faded from books, the Doctor remembers. 

In a sense, they're never truly lost to time. They may have died in a small moment of glory, hundreds of years ago or thousands of years from now, on an unnamed planet or a doomed spaceship or in a dark cave, but the Doctor carries them through the chapters of history. They live on through him — and in that way they outlast almost everything else.

Dying for the universe, for others, for the Doctor… It's its own kind of immortality. And at night, when the Doctor is on the edge of sleep, he would push away the nightmares and remember the ones he’d lost and left behind. 

And the light from their moments of glory would keep the darkness at bay. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

16\. Tegan and Sara – “Where Does the Good Go”  
 **(for captain jack harkness)**

Jack had a lot of experience with getting over people. The life of a Time Agent/con artist wasn’t especially conducive to steady relationships, and he just wasn’t made for long-distance love affairs. He was the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em type, and he was okay with that. He never gave his lovers rose-coloured glasses, never pretended that he was in it for the long haul. Everyone went into things with their eyes open—or willingly wearing blindfolds, depending on the situation. 

At least, until he found himself traveling in a bizarre blue box, sleeping down the hall from a gorgeous girl from 21st century Earth, eating dinner with a man who sounded British but wasn’t by half and who made a leather jacket look _amazing_. It wasn’t until he’d settled into an easy routine, found himself in a place he almost immediately considered a home, that he began to think that maybe, just maybe, he could be the kind of guy who could get comfortable in a steady relationship.

The biggest question was who with. She was beautiful and radiant and always ready to laugh—she looked great in short skirts and there was that _grin_. And he was confident and intelligent and loved cheesy puns; and with nine hundred plus years of experience, he _must_ have picked up a trick or two… 

But in his heart of hearts Jack knew it would have been for naught—you only had to glance at the two of them to see the obvious. The three of them would be walking by a river after a particularly panic-filled day, and she would reach for the Doctor’s hand without hesitation. And his hand would open at his side just before she touched him, and the smallest of smiles would creep across their faces. 

There was no room for a third in _that_ relationship. 

Still, Jack was nothing if not philosophical when it came to love and sex. Sometimes it was enough just to be close to the person (or people) you loved. To share your days with them and talk and eat together. Just knowing they were there, ready with a laugh or a story or a helping hand if you needed it.

It was the longest relationship he’d ever had, and he’d been happy in it. He never would have dreamed that his best romance would have been one that never included a single orgasm. 

But all good things have to end, even when you’re a time traveler. At least he got the one kiss he’d always been wanting—well, two, technically. He went out guns blazing, as was only right, and it was a noble death, something he had never really expected but was rather pleased about in the fraction of a second before the Daleks’ lasers struck him—

And then he woke up. The TARDIS was leaving him behind, and all he could think was, _They left me. They dumped me. Why would they do that?_

It took him a long time to get over the Doctor and Rose Tyler. Years and years and years. He always hoped to find his way back to the TARDIS — back home — where things were comfortable and easy and there would be explanations for what had happened to him. 

Sometimes, though, you never quite get what you want. The answers aren’t always simple or comforting. 

Sometimes not even a Doctor can cure you of your pain.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

17\. The Cab – “I’ll Run”  
 **(for when you have a hand to hold)**

_“He saves worlds, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures, and runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved.”_

There are some ground rules for traveling with the Doctor. 

One: be ready for _anything_. Bog monsters, space rhinos, bitchy trampolines, Cybermen, Daleks, gas-mask zombies, killer angel statues — _anything_.

Two: have a heart. Sympathize with the victims. Be ready with a kind word or supportive shoulder. There’s a lot of heartache and sorrow out there in time and space, and sometimes making a difference means comforting those left behind.

Three: never give up and never say die. There’s always a way to save the day. It’s always a good idea to take a stand. And you should always be the best you can possibly be. You’ve got to hold onto hope and love and the Doctor’s hand, because no matter how terrible things may seem, there’ll be something worthwhile at the end of it all. 

Four: never take a life unless it’s the only way. Leave the guns for the soldiers, don’t touch the big red threatening button unless the Doctor tells you to, and give the aliens/mad scientists/robots/monsters every chance to leave peacefully. 

And five: always wear sensible shoes. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

18\. La Roux – “Fascination”  
 **(for martha jones)**

Could you really blame her for falling for the man? After _that_ kiss and saving her life, taking her to meet William Bloody Shakespeare and sharing a bed, always grabbing her hand as he tensed to run, telling her she was brilliant and that he liked the way she thought… 

Any girl would be head-over-heels for such a dashing bloke, especially when he looked _that_ good in those slim suits and dramatic coat.

_“You stare at him as if you’re amazed he even exists.”_

And that was part of the allure, too, wasn’t it? That this incredible man with his magical box was real and that he’d asked _her_ to travel with him. He’d opened her eyes to a million wonders she never thought possible, and she couldn’t help but be fascinated by him. There was that old spark, the feeling she hadn’t had since she was a kid and thought things like flying carpets and enchanted castles were real.

He was strange and clever and funny and handsome, and she wished that he’d look at her, just once, and really _see_ her. 

Look at her as if she was the only other person in the universe.

That he’d smile at her the way he smiled whenever he saw the words Bad Wolf spray-painted on abandoned warehouses. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

19\. Front Line Assembly – “Providence”  
 **(for the last of the time lords)**

He’d always been the odd one. He’d never cared for the classes and the games the others enjoyed—he found them dull and stifling. He wanted to _get out there_ , just take off and go wherever the wormholes took him. There were so many worlds out there, so many interesting people, and he wanted to see them all. He wanted to know the names of the stars because he’d seen them up close and felt their heat, not because he’d memorized them off of crackling charts. He wanted to watch history unfold, smell and touch and taste it, but his professors told him that wasn’t their place. They were to be observers—the record-keepers of the cosmos. 

There were tests he had to pass, he was told. He had to be qualified before he’d be allowed off-planet—they had to know he wouldn’t do anything rash or dangerous, and that he’d follow the dictates of the Shadow Proclamation. Under no circumstances was he to interfere with the workings of other peoples and planets.

The day he stole his Type 40 TARDIS — or perhaps she stole him? — and made his getaway was one of his happiest.

The universe was everything he’d hoped it would be. He fell in love with so many places, so many cultures, though he never stopped in one spot for long. How could he, when there was so much more to see and do? 

Then he came to Earth, and he found a race he could truly admire. Humans were bright and ingenious and sometimes remarkably stupid—but there was such potential there.

His people never truly understood or approved—they labeled him a renegade. Put him on trial. Exiled him. But they were still his people, and despite their close-mindedness and stuffy senatorial ways, he still loved them. 

Then came the War. Then came the Could’ve Been King and the Skaro Degradations and the fall of the Time Lords. He stood on the front line of the War and he watched as his people devolved into madness. Everything that had been noble and worthy in the people of Gallifrey warped and corrupted into something even worse than the Daleks—for the Daleks were what they had always been. They had never suffered such a fall from grace.

So it was the Doctor, the Time Lord the others had never truly understood, who was forced to make the final stand and be what the others should have been. The Doctor delivered the final blow of the Time War and destroyed his people—his home—for the good of the universe.

He had always run from Gallifrey. Why bother with the rules and regulations when the universe was so vast and intriguing? He had never cared much for the company of his people, who could be boring and dry and humorless, preferring the more varied and exciting company of humans and tin dogs. 

But when it was gone, when he found himself standing in the devastating aftermath alone…

The only way to go on was to run. 

Run — and never stop.


End file.
